


One-Up

by say_im_good



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: "Enemies" to lovers, Eventual Smut, M/M, bang chan owns the restaurant and wants everyone to be happy, but only slightly - Freeform, chef jisung and changbin, host jeongin, hyunjin hates it, inspired slightly by god's menu, jealous hyunjin, minho is flawless, proud hyunjin, restaurant AU, servers hyunjin minho felix seungmin, slow burn to some extent?, they're not really enemies... maybe one sided
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26494072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/say_im_good/pseuds/say_im_good
Summary: Hyunjin works at a restaurant where the concept is that the servers wear attractive clothes and masks that hide their faces. He’s the notorious wearer of the cat mask and is considered the most charismatic server, the one customers will come often just to see. He’s very proud of his title, at least until Minho shows up. Bang Chan, the owner of the restaurant, decides that the cat aesthetic fits the new hire all too well, and Hyunjin finds himself not only having to share his cat-like concept, but steadily losing the title of the most sought after server. Trying to one-up everything Minho does, Hyunjin refuses to be anything but the best. But focusing so much on someone as charming as Minho is dangerous, and Hyunjin begins to find himself losing a game he didn’t know he’d ever be playing.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. Characters

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Welcome to a new story of mine! I hope you like it <3

Bang Chan: Owner of the restaurant, a cheerful and positive role model  
Lee Minho: The charming new hire who wears a cat mask. Says this is his first serving job, but is strangely good with customers  
Seo Changbin: Head chef of the restaurant, has his hands full keeping the kitchen running and arguing with Jisung.  
Hwang Hyunjin: The most popular server, charming and well-known. Wears a cat mask and is well known for it.  
Han Jisung: Assistant chef to Changbin. Has a talent with cooking but makes hasty mistakes.  
Lee Felix: A bunny-masked server. Very nervous and shy, but customers find it charming.  
Kim Seungmin: A wolf-masked server. Friendly but maybe a little too blunt. Has worked at the restaurant the longest.  
Yang Jeongin: The host who seats customers and schedules reservations. Young and friendly, can do no wrong in anyone's eyes.


	2. Rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A famous blogger posts about the restaurant and the rushes are intense. Chan decides to hire someone new.

The small restaurant was bustling fifteen minutes past noon. The waiting room was filled with patrons on their phones, the tables were all seated, and not only were all three of the servers on the floor, but the owner of the restaurant himself had come in to help once Felix had sent a panic text saying the line to get in was starting to circle around the small building.

A popular blog that documented food locations of the city had decided to publish the Jeweled Rose in their most recent update. They’d called the restaurant a ‘small, beautifully decorated secret of the town, with amazing meals and a gorgeous, charming waitstaff’. The description had made Jeongin blush and Hyunjin gag a little, but Chan had looked past that and successfully predicted the biggest rush they’d ever had. 

It wasn’t like they weren’t popular before. The Jeweled Rose was a unique experience that long-time locals frequented. It was a small restaurant with beautiful rainbow decorations, stained glass windows, and different types of flowers vased on each table. There were mahogany tables, chairs, and support beams that appeared crimson in the right lighting. Most importantly, the main draw of the restaurant was the staff. 

Changbin had asked Chan in a team meeting how he managed to hire a staff made up entirely of pretty boys, to which Jisung had teased that Changbin himself was the definition of a pretty boy. Regardless, it was true. Even without the masks, all of the servers, chefs, even the host and the owner, they were all beautiful. Hyunjin had never said it, but he figured the appeal of the restaurant wasn’t even the stunning decorations, but them. 

They wore animal masks, decorated in subtle jewels of a color of their choice. Hyunjin’s mask was feline and covered the top half of his face only, leaving room to show his plush lips, something he’d requested when Chan was having the mask made. It was decorated with jewels the color of rose quartz, and Hyunjin figured it was the main reason why he was recognizable to customers no matter how many times he dyed his hair or how long it had gotten. 

Customers loved it. They’d identify servers by the style of their masks, asking to be seated with ‘the cat,’ ‘the bunny,’ or ‘the wolf’. But these customers, the ones coming in now in this huge rush, had mostly never been to the Jeweled Rose before, brought in by the famous blog that had given them notoriety when they were just a local draw before. When Hyunjin usually could recognize the faces of the patrons that walked in, he didn’t recognize nearly a single person now. It was almost a relief when a familiar customer walked in amongst the bustle, shocked that the line was so long when usually it wasn’t that bad. 

The customer was seated, and Hyunjin made his way to him without Jeongin even having to assign the table. Hyunjin knew which customer favored which server, and he expected the bright smile of the customer when he saw Hyunjin making his way to him. 

“I’m lucky again, huh?” the customer asked, winking to Hyunjin, who smiled playfully. 

“Maybe more than lucky, hm?” Hyunjin replied in a soft, teasing voice. The man chuckled before accepting the menu that Hyunjin handed him. Hyunjin then leaned on the table with one hand, a move only he of the servers was bold enough to do, one that most customers loved from him. “What can I get you to drink?” 

\------------------------------------------------------

Time passed so quickly in the rush that it felt like a whirlwind had blown by. By the end of it, Seungmin had food on his shirt, not having had time to change amongst the rush, Felix was shaking a little, being somewhat new and not used to this amount of business, and Hyunjin was keening with the compliments he’d received from customers, counting the bills they’d left on the table and finding double what he’d usually make in a lunch rush. Chan sighed, coming out of the kitchen, followed by Jisung and Changbin in their chef uniforms. 

“That was wild,” Jisung mumbled, waving Jeongin over from the host stand to come sit with them while they had a very short period without customers. Chan stood at the forefront of the circle they created around him, crossing his arms with a slowly forming smile. 

“It was wild indeed,” he said to Jisung, before turning to look at everyone one by one. “And we handled it wonderfully. Good job, you guys,” Chan said, and Felix sighed broadly with relief. 

“I was so anxious,” the bunny-masked server mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve never seen that many people and they were all asking for things, I didn’t know if I could memorize it all.” 

“You did good though,” Seungmin assured, “I had a customer even tell me that he was impressed that just the three of us could take care of this entire restaurant. And Chan of course, but everyone can tell he’s the owner.”

Chan pouted, “How?”

Hyunjin grinned. “Maybe by your suit instead of the proper serving uniform?”

Chan then blinked down at himself before slowly, embarrassedly smiling. “I guess that would do it, yeah.” 

His smile then faded somewhat, and he turned back to the team. “So today showed that we’re going to have a bigger rush from now on. While I think you guys handled it amazingly, I think it would be easier on all of us if we hired someone new.”

Hyunjin’s heart skipped a little. Someone new. Felix was the newest hire, and that was still three and a half months ago. Because Chan cared so much for all of his employees, they rarely hired anyone new, not wanting to risk that person not getting along with the rest of the staff or randomly not showing up to shifts. 

The mood of the room showed tension, and Chan smiled to try and dissolve it quickly. “It’s not a bad thing, guys! I’ll be careful to hire someone that we can all rely on and get along with. I’m going to make the posting tonight, so just be prepared to train someone when the time comes, okay?” He nodded to the three servers, who nodded back. He then turned to the chefs. “You guys did well today too, keeping up with the orders.” Next, he turned to Jeongin. “And I’m impressed that you kept your cool when that lady started to yell at you.” 

Jeongin rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I thought I was going to cry, I don’t think anyone’s been that mean before,” he mumbled. 

Chan nodded understandingly before turning back to address the entire group. “Regardless, our rushes will be bigger from now on after that blog post, so just be ready everyday for a big rush like that. Hopefully we’ll get someone hired on soon.” 

They were dismissed, and Jisung and Changbin went back to the kitchen, Chan following them to go to his office. Hyunjin sighed, resting his elbows on the table he was sitting at and holding his chin in his hands. “What a day,” he muttered. 

Felix nodded, sighing, “I hope the dinner rush isn’t that bad.” 

“It will be,” Seungmin muttered, staring at the front door of the restaurant, squinting to try and see through the stained glass panels to make out if someone was about to walk in or not. 

“At least we’re hiring someone,” Jeongin sighed, right as the door opened. The three servers scrambled to look like they were doing something productive, and Jeongin made his way to the front door towards a young man. They struck up a conversation, and Hyunjin waited for the man to be seated. He wondered which of the servers he would ask for, if anyone specific. He’d probably give Felix the table if he wasn’t specifically requested. He’d made hundreds of dollars off tips in just a few hours, and he didn’t really need the extra money as much as Felix did. 

But instead of walking him to a table, Jeongin showed him to the waiting room and the man sat down. Hyunjin turned to Seungmin and furrowed his brow, to which Seungmin just shrugged. Jeongin hurried to the kitchen, not addressing the three confused servers. 

A minute passed, and Hyunjin wondered if he should ask the man if he wanted to be seated. The doors to the kitchen opened again, and this time, Chan was walking out with Jeongin. They both hurried across the restaurant, and Chan sat down across from the man in the waiting area. 

Hyunjin was so interested in trying to guess what was going on that he nearly jumped out of his skin upon Felix approaching and whispering to him, “What do you think is happening there?” 

Hyunjin muttered, “I’m not sure. Maybe he’s someone Chan knows?” 

But customers began coming in one by one, and soon they were too swept up in the job to really pay attention to what was happening in the waiting room. It wasn’t until around thirty minutes later when Chan hurried up to Hyunjin with a broad grin that Hyunjin remembered that there was even a conversation taking place in there. 

“Guess what,” Chan said excitedly. Hyunjin tilted his head as he picked up plates from the kitchen’s counter and put them onto his tray in a way that they’d balance properly. “We just hired our new person.” 

Hyunjin nearly dropped the tray whipping around to look at Chan. “We what? That guy just now?!” he asked, jaw dropped. 

Chan nodded hastily. “His name is Minho, he was really enthusiastic about the job so I told him I’d hire him!” 

Hyunjin furrowed his brow, beginning to walk to the table the food was for, Chan following to continue the short conversation. “Does he have serving experience?” he asked uneasily. This felt too hasty, and it wasn’t unlike Chan to get too excited about someone applying to really consider whether they were qualified for the job. 

“Well no, but-”

Hyunjin sighed, heart falling. Of course. He’d be training someone with no experience in some of the worst rushes they’d had since opening. “I hope it’s not a mistake,” he mumbled, and Chan shrugged. 

“We’ll find out, I guess,” the owner said, before letting Hyunjin get back to work. 

\---------------------------------------

Hyunjin was laying his head down on the table, tapping his fingers and listening to the way they echoed on the wood. Jeongin was sipping a soda and everyone else at the table was drinking something alcoholic; They needed it after such a busy day. “Chan, did you tell everyone the news?” Hyunjin asked, sighing and letting his hand fall from the table and to his lap. Changbin was in the kitchen, cooking up a few desserts for them to share. Jisung was sitting on the counter, arguing with Changbin about something Hyunjin wasn’t listening to. Felix had gone home already. 

“Ah yeah! Sorry, you guys were so busy, I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone but Hyunjin,” Chan started, everyone looking up uneasily. “We hired our new server today.” 

Seungmin swallowed the wine that was already in his mouth, furrowing his brow. “Already? Chan, don’t tell me you hired the first person who asked-”

“It’s not like that,” Chan hurried to interrupt. “He looks like he’ll be a good fit for the restaurant, and he’s a friendly person. I think he’ll get along with the team and the customers.” 

Seungmin sighed, pulling off his wolf mask and setting it down on the table. Everyone always told him that he didn’t resemble the animal at all, but Seungmin had refused when Chan told him he looked like a puppy and should wear a puppy mask, so the wolf was the closest thing they could agree on. 

“I hope it works out,” Seungmin mumbled. Hyunjin pulled off his own mask, having forgotten that he was wearing it, placing it gently in his lap before taking a sip of his drink. Changbin walked out with the desserts, cursing Jisung for not helping him make them, to which Jisung stuck out his tongue. Once the chocolate cake and the tiramisu were placed on the table, Hyunjin lost all focus on the conversation to dig into the sweet sugar he’d been craving all day. 

“It’ll work out, or it won’t,” Chan sighed, clearly feeling a little defeated that his entire team seemed to think his new hire was a bad idea. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll just hire someone else.” 

The night went on as they ate and drank, the conversation dropping, and Hyunjin nearly forgetting to expect a new hire until a week later when he saw Minho walking through the doors.


End file.
